Mary gave me the Christmas gift I haven't written of,
a book I hadn't heard of, an 11.5" x 8" volume called Bound for Glory: America in Color 1939-1943, with an introduction by Paul Hendrickson (Harry N. Abrams, in association with the Library of Congress, 2004). As Hendrickson notes, we tend to "see" the Great Depression and the war years of the 1940s in black and white. I know that I do. All the great dust storm and Depression images I remember have been black and white, all the Rosie the Riveter photos. Think of Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother," which I just saw again recently, on the cover of The Nation, retouched to make an editorial point; the original is as emblematic of Depression-era photography as any image I can think of. Its force lies in its starkness. The fundamental power of those photos was their darkness and whiteness, their shadow and light, their hard margins, captured with not a single measure of sentimentality. I could not imagine such images in color.
Now I can.
Bound for Glory has 175 color photos from those years, 1939-1943, taken by photographers for the FSA (Farm Security Administration) and OWI (Office of War Information). The images are fully as moving as any you remember in black and white; for some, their power comes precisely because they are in color. I'm thinking of Jack Delano's "At the State Fair, Rutland, Vermont" (1941): most of a family is gathered on the near-empty midway: mother in black; the carrying-child in a dark blue jumper with pale blue blouse; the blonde-headed boy in brown shorts, white shirt, pale blue sweater; the two older girls in small-print cotton dresses of a dusty-rose hue; the three younger girls in similar dresses with a little larger print, a deeper rose color; the girls have little bows and barrettes in their hair. The scene, obviously, has not been posed, yet the statement couldn't be more powerful: the blonde-headed boy divides the sea of rose-colored girls with his blue exclamation. No two of the family look off in the same direction; rather, each of them poses this question, one familiar to me: what is all of this and how do I get ahold of any of it? The sensation of being in an unfamiliar environment is palpable. Only the second youngest of the girls in rose-colored dresses is looking at the camera. Her right hand plays with the index finger of her left hand. Her head is cocked slightly, to suggest "Yeah, what?" with no disrespect intended. Her blonde hair is chopped the way mothers used to chop their daughters' hair back then, a straight cut all the way around a little below the ears. Her ears are for hearing; they are not beauty accessories. Her mouth is turned up at one end, in a question, not so much a sneer. The shot of her eyes pierces the camera, enters our souls. She wants to know: who are you, who am I?
There is Russell Lee's "Distributing Surplus Commodities, St. Johns, Arizona" (1940). It looks like peaches would be what they're giving out, ripe peaches in wooden crates, only one of the crates broken open at this point. The long line of men waiting for "surplus commodities" snakes all the way out the back of the photograph. All those men have hats, except for one of them; and many of the hats have the same dun color everything takes on in the light of the southwestern sun. All the men have serious looks and serious coats, one or two of the coats rolled into the crook of an arm. The man who would be in charge doesn't look like a bureaucrat; he looks like one of us: his greenish cap and shirt of matching color a kind of working man's uniform. The seriousness on his face as he checks through his file of index cards suggests that if we are to survive, it's up to him. Behind him, and off his left shoulder, there are four women in surprisingly formal dress; one of the women wears a hat and broach. The woman in the blue coat is turned away from us; she has a gunny sack under her arm. Now turn your attention to the woman standing in the center of these women, the woman in the white coat and a white blouse or dress visible beneath it. Look at her. She is looking at you. If she's not your great aunt or your grandmother, if she's not your mother or your sister, tell me who she is.
"Living Quarters and Juke Joint for Migratory Workers, Belle Glade, Florida" (1941) by Marion Post Wolcott is a study in grey and blue and tan and black and white. Weathered wood, the ground, the sky. Signs: Ice Cold Coca Cola and Drink Royal Crown Cola and Ice Cold Jax Ale Beer Stout - the Drinks of Friendship. The old buildings have electricity, yes: you can see the wires and meter. Four black men and a black woman face us. The woman is off by herself, her back is against the corner of the farther building. The man coming out the doorway of the first building is hitching his pants as if he'd heard somebody was taking pictures and he's late for it. Another man is sprawled on the landing at the same doorway, one leg hanging off, the other knee up, the look on his face suggesting he has been here waiting for this all of his life. A disembodied hand shows at the edge of darkness, the edge of light in the doorway; and an elbow and shoulder are seen at a nearby window: every other part of these couple of men is hidden from us. There is another man, in the center of the photo. He has his back turned to us. His tan shirt and tan pants look more like uniform than the clothing of any of the others. He wears a hat the color of the weathered wood. You'd swear he's holding a shotgun. The barrel would be pointed slightly towards the ground. I'm the only one who seems to notice.
John Vachon's "Worker at Carbon Black Plant, Sunray, Texas" (1942). The background is black except for a triangle of deep greyness in the upper right-hand corner. A man stands facing us in the center of the photograph, enough light on his clothes that we can see their darkness. The light comes at him from his right, our left; it shows us half his face and a stub of hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his lip. His neck is black as the darkness, yet his face is a half-moon cracked and pale in an otherwise blank night sky. He looks everything like death come to take us.
"The Caudill Family Eating Dinner in Their Dugout, Pie Town, New Mexico" (1940) by Russell Lee. Mother is jammed in the corner. Perhaps a teen-age daughter at this end of the table. Her little blonde brother around the corner from her. Father across the table from Mother. The thumb of his left hand is bound up in bandage. Mother is reaching for something with her right hand; you don't know what - her hand is hidden behind the can of "Karo Crystal White" with a plate of biscuits on top of it. A glass container of milk at the far end of the table, a glass pot of applesauce, perhaps, dead center. Two canning jars stand opened on the table; I cannot guess what's in them. There is a dish with green beans here, and plate with what might be meat pie there. Mother seems nearly finished eating. I think Father is having a little more gravy on bread. The plates of daughter and son suggest they had a different meal almost entirely, corn soup or rice and milk. Son took a few green beans - because he had to, I suppose - and they are pushed to the very edge of his plate and onto the table. Mother's face is as serious as sorrow . The fingers and thumb of her left hand are shaped as if she is holding a pole, or the shaft of hope; there is red polish on her fingernails, which is chipped, or else the light catches the tips of her fingers just so. The daughter's thumbnail is polished too, I can see that, and her hand holds its spoon so delicately. There are two other places at the table, set with plates and silverware; yet no one sits at them. For whom were these places prepared?
"Lathe Operator Machining Parts for Transport Planes, Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, Forth Worth Texas" (1942) by Howard R. Hollem. The nail polish seems nearly worn off the thumb of the right hand gripping the machine. There is grease at the front edge of that forearm and on the back edge of it and up near where the arm bends. The work apron, which has a "Consolidated Aircraft" logo on it, was once white but it shall never be white again. The chambray shirt was once blue, but it shall never be blue again. The machine operator is paying attention to business, not to the camera. A yellow cap sets atop her head, with its bill tipped away at a jaunty angle, and brown curls dropping over the ears and down to the collar. There is color to the woman's lips, the color of fierce determination, not of lipstick. Her nose is to the grindstone. We cannot see her eyes but we know they would be fierce with determination, too. You have to believe we will not be defeated so long as this woman is on the job.
I could go on. I could write about every photo in Bound for Glory; they all speak to me. But let me stop. I'd rather that they have the opportunity to speak to you.
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